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FALE´RIA

FALE´RIA or FALE´RIO (Eth. Faleriensis or Falerionensis: Fallerona), a town of Picenum on the left bank of the river Tinna, about 20 miles from the sea. We learn very little about it from ancient authors, but the Falerienses (written in our MSS. Falarienses) are mentioned by Pliny among the municipal towns of the interior of Picenum: and the “Falerionensis ager” is noticed among the “civitates Piceni” in the Liber Coloniarum. (Plin. Nat. 3.13. s. 18; Lib. Colon. p. 256.)
But its existence as a considerable municipal town, with its local senate and magistrates, is attested by inscriptions of the time of Domitian, Hadrian, and the Antonines: as well as by the ruins still visible on the left bank of the Tenna, about a mile below the modern village of Fallerona, among which those of a theatre and amphitheatre are the most conspicuous.
The former has been recently cleared out, and the excavations have brought to light many statues and other ancient fragments, as well as the architectural features of the building itself, in good preservation. (De Minicis, in the Ann. dell' Inst. 1839, pp. 5--61.) From one of the inscriptions discovered here we learn that the territory of Faleria bordered on that of Firmum, and that it had received a colony of veterans under Augustus. (Orell. Inscr. 3118.) Another mentions its forum, capitolium, &c. (De Minicis, l.c. p. 49.)
The correct designation of the citizens appears to have been “Falerienses exPiceno,” but another inscription gives the form Falerio or Falerione for the name of the town, which is preserved in the modern Fallerone.